


Summoning the demon

by Nightlands



Category: Loki - Fandom, Norse Mythology
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22105972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightlands/pseuds/Nightlands
Summary: In desperate need to help her best friend Mary tries summoning a demon. Little did she know that demon was something far more powerful than she could have imagined.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 5





	Summoning the demon

Fucking finally, the rain started to pour. In the middle of the hottest day in July, the clouds covered the sky and brought darkness at noon. Mary realized she'd been holding her breath for what felt like a full minute before the sky opened to wash the stuffiness of the summer day away. Captured by the stillness of the oncoming rain. Nature and the sound of it had been suspended like a breath held. Mary wasn't usually one for swearing, but she had been waiting for so long, so nervous, completely terrified. She was already in the old barn. Prepared for the bad weather that she needed for this crazy long shot to work. A summoning. More than a long shot, dabbling with the occult was fiction. She might as well say a prayer to batman while she was at it. He would probably have a better chance of paying the medical bills. And get his pal Gandalf to rid Charlie of the tumors in his skin.

Mary spray-painted a black pentagram on the floor, following her own slim sketches on the board she had outlined over a month earlier. The floorboards were old and uneven, so she'd put down a big piece of plywood on top of it as a canvas for the pentagram. The candles were lit, she had her transcript (laminated, and with a backup printed and tucked away in her bag by her feet) in hand. The plastic red water bottle was next to it, drops of condensation rolling down it's length, ready in case her throat got dry. She didn't dare to think about what might happen if she'd messed anything up, she hadn't been able to find any credible sources on what happened if you made a mistake when summoning a demon. Hopefully that meant a swift death she thought, feeling a giddiness that didn't belong. Sometimes it was better to just take the leap. Get it over with. When the first bolt of lightning flashed, Mary jumped, she never noticed the flash of green in the dark corner behind her. She started reciting her transcript.

"And how may I be of service, young lady?" Mary thought she would have seen the demon appear. She tried to roll with it, attempting to hide her surprise while continuing her reading.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" The stranger said, a polite note of concern in it's low voice. It sounded one hundred percent genuine, but Mary knew it would try to trick her to stop reading too soon, leaving the summoning-spell half-finished and ready to be torn apart by its magic.

It’s voice had an urgency she hadn’t expected.

"Please, I don't mean to offend you, but I'm in a great hurry. If you just tell me what you need straight away I can help you." Was that fear in his voice? Mary didn't stop reading. She didn't look up, but she could see that he made a sudden movement.

"Oh no! Behind you!" Something did crash against the floor, a chair fell form the beams in the ceiling. Mary flinched but continued reading. The alarm in his voice sounded real, but she was nearing the end and wasn't about to fuck this up now. If there really was something behind her it couldn't be worse than the demon in front of her. Besides, it'd be really embarrassing to have the old "oh no behind you" be the end of her.

The flow of words ebbed, she'd finished the summoning and she almost didn't dare look at the result. She put it off by grabbing her water and taking a sip, first looking at the dusty floorboards, then looking up at the old planks that doubled as a makeshift ceiling and support for all the old furniture and junk that was too precious to throw away but not whole enough or loved enough to still be in use. So they were placed here, in furniture and unwanted items purgatory, the barn. Just like people with pickup trucks were obligated to be a fixture of any moving-party, people with barns were obligated to store large unwanted objects. It didn't matter that she put it off anyway, it wasn't as if he was going anywhere. Mary almost smiled as she looked up.

And there he was. In front of her grandpa’s old workbench that he claimed had been a tool for some masterful carpentry back in the day. But grandfathers were known to bend the truth a bit. Just as the creature in front of her.

"I'd thought you'd look like a mermaid." The creature (well, man?) crooked its head.

"If that's your preference I'd be willing to oblige." The deamon replied.

"No, no, it's fine" Mary was kind of relieved that it looked like a person, it helped normalize things a bit for the novice who'd never dabbled in the occult before. She was however a bit unsettled by its appearance. It looked more... Elegant, than she's expected of a demon from hell. Dark shiny hair combed back, and eyes that were so green she could see their color from the other side of the dim barn shone in his pale, kind of drawn face. The lean look on his face was present in his form and posture as well, he was tall and slim, like a man who spent more time working out than he did eating. Health and nutrition was one of the last classes Mary had had a chance to take before she dropped out of college, and she knew a budding eating disorder when she saw it. 

It smiled at Mary again as she put her water down on the floor, right next to the ring in the dust it had left when she's picked it up before. She wondered if it was a conscious tactic that it let the silence stretch out between them. Probably was.

"So" She said, adding some strength to her voice, some force to signal to herself and to this demon that she knew what she was doing.

"You're probably wondering why I've summoned you here today."

It stood up straighter, but not in a way that seemed like it was paying more attention to her. The smile combined with the new posture instead made it look like he did it in jest. A mock salute as a part of a fun game he played with her. Toying with her. Unnerved, she soldiered on.

"I have a favor to ask" She thought the best course of action was to be diplomatic about it. She paused, but it just kept the same smile and the same stare fixed on her.

"I need you to heal someone." It crooked an eyebrow, still smiling.

"I know you usually injure people, and... make their wounds fester or whatever, but I know you've healed people before too. And I need you to do that for me. For my friend." Her voice didn't break, thank god, and she decided to wait the demon out; your move.

More than a minute must have dragged by before he responded.

"And so you've come to me." A dark, lush voice lined with velvet, but it made the hair on her arms stand up. Another smile as the demon’s eyes once again fixed on her. "You must know already; I don't work for free."

"But I wonder, how did you find me? Why did you choose me for this... summoning" It looked down on the floor as it finished, registering the dust, the plywood nailed to the original floor planks, and the sprayed on pentagram atop it.

In truth Mary had spent months scouring the web of occult things that might help Charlie. She found the pagan forums, and in some of them she found people who claimed they had summoned demons. She didn't dare ask straight out what she wanted to learn, but she started chatting to the four of them who seemed the most credible. Three were full of it, Mary found out after a while, but the fourth had made a deal with an actual demon who helped her by making her student debt disappear. She had to cut off a toe though, but Mary thought that still counted as getting off cheap.

"You were the one who seemed to have the most experience with healing. When you're not, you know, killing sailors and stuff." Mary took a shaky breath. She'd rehearsed this next line. "My friend Charlie has cancer. I want you to get rid of my friend Charlies cancer and make him well again. Suggest a price and we'll discuss it."

"Oh, to barter, lucky me." It really looked like it meant it. The spider feeling a tug in its web.  
"What? You do this with every human."

"Yes, naturally, but it does not make it lose its savor."  
"Suggest a price and we'll discuss it."

"Why not chat with me for a little while? How often do you get to speak with a creature from outside of your world anyway? A shame to let this opportunity go to waste. Want to know what happens to humans after death? Want to know how to become a billionaire?"

"Suggest a price and we'll discuss it."

A pause, and then a smile so cold it cleared the moisture from the air. Mary could feel it. She had goosebumps on her arms.

"Oh, fine. Your death, and the death of all the members of your family, by your hand. I don't care how you do it, but bonus point's if it's drawn out."

"No that's to high. How about blood? One gallon of my blood spilled, during a period of six months?"

"Hm, no. I think not. How about your life, and you even get to remain living? You will be my servant, until I release you, and don't worry I usually don't keep servants for very long or work them very hard."

"Two gallons of my blood spilled, over your altar, over a period of eight months."

The pale face showed mock concern. "And here I was, under the impression that you loved your friend, and yet you don't even care enough about him to enslave yourself to some sort of demonic spirit"

"It's just trying to trick you Mary, you did your homework." Her own voice sounded in her head.

"My right hand, I'll chop off my right hand and burn it in your honor."

Mock outrage this time: "But you're left-handed! Tsk tsk, you mustn't care about this Charlie of yours at all. That's still too low a price I'm afraid. Bear in mind, I am some sort of high-ranking demon in the Christian faith. Maybe even a demonic lord of some sort!"

"What?"

"Well I've never really bothered to memorize them all. With all these new believes sprouting from left to right, who has the time?"

He fixed her with a predatory stare as she struggled to remain calm. Something was off, she'd fucked something up and it was about to make her pay. She was barely an inch from panic by its words alone. Then it stepped out of the pentagram.

"Oh shit"  
"Why, don't you look surprised!" It smiled like it was all a great joke. Which it probably was, now that she thought about it.

"N- no" She took a step back as the demon took a step forward.

"How did you do that?"

"What, walking? Well, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not 100 percent sure how you humans get around nowadays, but this used to be all the rage here on Midgard I assure you."

"How? I, I checked everything. Please."

"Hm, what's that? Please?" Blood in the water, the cold smile returned.

"Just a couple of seconds ago you were completely fine with keeping me trapped on a piece of... compressed sawdust with scribbles on it, and now you're asking for favors?

"Please..." She had no better arguments.

"I must say, I'm impressed of your feat in getting me here. There is something to this... spell you performed. I'll tell you what; agree to my terms, and I let you live."

She took another step back. And bumped up against an old table, her path blocked by the pile of old furniture behind her.

"I assure you, you cannot run away. Now, I'm many things but I'm not greedy. One year of servitude will suffice. And I'll even cure your friend, just as you wanted from the start."

Fear made Mary stand as still as she could, cold sweat rolling down her back.

"Well?" A step closer, slow and deliberate. The pentagram was four of his long steps behind him and there wasn’t much space left between them.

"I... let me think."  
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that" He said softly. "You've had plenty of time to think before you decided to start summoning things you knew far too little about." Another step. "One year? It won't be too bad. I promise." 

He was a only couple of feet away from her and she couldn't take another step backwards. Looking at his face she knew she was trapped. There was too much surety in those cold green eyes.

Nowhere to run.

"Ok, one year of service, and you cure Charlie from all illness, and make sure he's safe."

"Don't push it now, we both know you've got no chips left." He crooned.

"Deal?" She reached out her hand.

"Oh no, that’s not how we're going to seal it." He gently gripped her head and held her in place, as he leaned down and softly pressed his lips against hers. She could feel him smile, and he playfully bit her lower lip, just a bit. Then he pulled back.

"Oh, you're in trouble now." He smiled, still cradling her face with his hands. And he was gone.  
Mary stood for a couple of minutes, unsure if he really were gone, or just about to return and kill her.  
She started to hide the evidence of the summoning. Prying the plywood off the floor, and placing the pieces face down in the burn-pile outside, covering them with the debris that were already there. Then she put her stuff back in her bag and walked the grassy road back along the fields home, to her parents' house.

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a whole thing but I only managed the one-shot. Please give kudos or leave a comment if you like it! <3


End file.
